Bruce H. Smith

Bruce Hixon Smith was born in 1936. He is an
abstract painter that uses acrylic paints. He currently lives in
Springville with his family.

Smith graduated from both Brigham Young
University and the University of Utah. He is currently teaching
drawing and painting at B.Y.U. While attending college, he
studied with both Douglas Snow and Alvin Gittins.

Some of Smith's paintings have one smaller canvas
below the main canvas, like an individual predella; others have a
large central canvas with smaller ones above and below. And some,
like
The Street (Center of Snow), are themselves a series of
paintings with another group below.

Bruce Hixon Smith, a graduate of both Brigham Young University
and the University of Utah, teaches drawing and painting at BYU.
He currently lives in Springville with his family. While
attending college, he studied with both Douglas Snow and Alvin
Gittins. At that time, Bruce's works leaned heavily toward
non-objective art; however, after several often-frustrating years
spent exploring abstract art, Smith shifted his focus.

Currently, he is pursuing the spiritual in a style he calls
academic objective realism. Bruce Smith relies heavily on
repetition, often painting objects two or three times on the same
canvas. He begins his work in a relaxed, uninhibited manner. He
draws and redraws contour lines, making no attempt to cover up
the first lines. These lines create a sense of movement, as if
the person has paused momentarily or the fabric might move in the
breeze. Smith brushes colors on thinly and briskly. He then moves
from general to specific, usually concentrating on one focal
point, building up colors, textures, and details, but leaving
some areas gestural.

Although painting is a private experience for
Smithvisitors to his studio will find his easel facing away
from the door and objects, that almost seem randomly distributed
blocking the pathhe deliberately leaves his paintings
“open-ended, “ inviting viewers in. Smith's use of
symbols contributes to this open door sensationthe meanings
of some of the symbols he uses are discernable but layered. Other
symbols are obscure: a ribbon, a bottle of fruit, a piece of
cloth. Smith says sometimes he doesn't know the meaning of the
symbols he uses. Not because he picks them randomly, but because
he chooses the symbols intuitively, happy to let them remain
undefined. He explains, “When they seem right, I put them
in and purposely keep it a little bit vague, even to me; so they
are not illustration, where everything is understandable. I want
to have the possibility of going deeperI prefer not to know
exactly what they signify.”

Smith says all his paintings are about art, which is in a
constant state of flux. Modernism did away with the old attitudes
and ideas about art, but now Modernism itself is over. Smith
seeks to incorporate some of the older attitudes about art and
still have his work retain some of the brand new things Modern
Art tried to do, including being a means of
“ditching” the old. Bruce has a real allegiance to
what art was prior to Modernism, which he believes is common.
What he doesn't think is common is also having a feeling for
Modernism. He is convinced that art before Modernism has value
today, but that Modernism has elements of worth as well. The
problem, he says, is to mix those qualities.

The open-endedness of his works is certainly a Modernist
trait; conversely, over the last few years, Smith has configured
many of his paintings in ways that harken back to Italian
religious works of the Renaissance. Those early multipaneled
altarpieces consist of a principal central panel with secondary
side and/or top panels, and a predella. The predella is a small
strip of paintings which forms the lower edge of the altarpiece
and usually has narrative scenes from the lives of the saints who
are represented in the panels above, or a portrait of the person
who commissioned the artwork. Some of Smith's paintings have one
smaller canvas below the main canvas, like an individual
predella; others have a large central canvas with smaller ones
above and below. And some, like The Street (Center of Snow), are
themselves a series of paintings with another group below.
Whatever the exact configuration, the allusion to Renaissance art
is clear: and, like the symbols he uses, this reference gives
depth to the artworks.

But unlike David Hockney, who creates panoramic views, Bruce
Smith uses multiple views and techniques like repetition to make
his paintings offer us a wider view of ourselves. The artworks
also invite us to ponder, to have “a growth of awareness. .
. a refinement of self-understanding.” The painting Jacob
and Leah, like all of Bruce Smith's work, is a visual image that
means more, and is more, visually than it ever will if we try to
capture too closely that meaning in words.